


in my many arms

by dearmrsawyer



Series: octolou [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Aquarist Niall, Gen, Octopus Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 05:24:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16886439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmrsawyer/pseuds/dearmrsawyer
Summary: “Oh god, where’s he gone.”Louis is a menace, no matter what form he takes.





	in my many arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1000_directions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/gifts).



> For Steph, who loves Louis and octopuses and deserves both!

“Oh god, where’s he gone.”

Niall drops the tub full of hermit crabs, just clipping the end of his left foot. Half a dozen spill out onto the floor, click-clacking against the tile, but he doesn’t give them a second thought. He dashes to largest tank in his lab, slipping slightly, and presses his nose to the glass.

Hands splayed against the surface, his eyes sweep the pebbly interior; other than the gently waving weeds, it’s completely still. He squints at the nooks and recesses in the coral, and double checks whether there’s anything hidden inside the two bottles separated from their lids on the tank floor. He squints, straining his eyes, even grabs his glasses to make sure he hasn’t missed any clever camouflage. But he hasn’t. The tank is lifeless, vacated.

He grips a fistful of hair, feeling the first hint of grease at the roots.

“Where’d you go, where’d you go.”

With a graceless flourish of his long white coat, Niall leaps towards the only two other tanks currently in the lab (and the objective of last month’s breakout).

He frantically scans them both for any distressed fish or suspiciously twitchy scenery. Both tanks seem rather peaceful; all the seahorses and boxfish drift about their absent-minded business as usual.

“Where’d you _go_.”

He’s getting hot under the arms now, heart pounding, and begins feverishly sifting through his files, lifting his tablet, cardigan, keyboard. He checks behind the three monitors spread across his desk, overturns his to-go coffee cup, burger wrapper and water glass from the day before. _Nothing_.

He’s just begun to roll his sleeves in anticipation of a more extensive, tile-by-tile search, when two things happened in quick succession. Footsteps approach and pause just outside his lab, and something very long and thin wiggles out from beneath the edge of his observation table.

“Wait—!”

The very second a gap appears in the doorway, something small and red dashes across the floor.

“Close the door!” Niall squalls, tripping forward with his arms outstretched. He knocks the observation table to the side and a whole host of tools clatter noisily to the floor. He hopes he hasn’t damaged anything expensive.

Liam’s face, which has just appeared in the gap, widens in panic. He wobbles, one leg in, unsure of whether to close himself in or out of the room.

In reality, Niall’s lab is one of the smaller labs in the aquarium. You can cross the room in less than a dozen strides, so there’s no time for this sort of indecision. Niall barrels forward, hollering wordlessly at the top of his lungs and loud enough for half the aquarium to hear.

In the nick of time, Liam snaps the door shut behind himself and flattens against it. He squeezes one eye closed, braced for impact, when Niall’s skids to a sudden stop at his feet, hands closing around the eight-armed escapist. They each deflate in relief; Niall sees Liam’s knees buckle slightly, and is glad to be knelt on the floor as his own legs feel a little jellyfish-like too. He heaves himself upright, panting, with a tight grip on a small tennis-ball sized octopus.

“Doesn’t anyone knock around here?”

“Sorry,” Liam grimaces. He seems a mixture of relief at having the situation contained, and guilt that it was of his own making. “Think we ought to make signs on any doors that hold this fella.”

The octopus fits neatly in Niall’s hands, its mantle just visible between his fingers. It’s bright red all over, no doubt furious that its escape attempt has been thwarted, and compresses itself in an effort to slip back out of his grasp. Niall grapples to keep it contained for a moment, and it eventually settles into one of his palms, winding most of its arms around his fingers. They make little puckered sounds and leave behind gentle welts that will settle within seconds.

“Let’s just assume he’s always here,” Niall says.

“You ever gonna put him back on display?”

“Got a school group coming through tomorrow, want them to have something interesting to see in my lab.”

“That your excuse every week, is it?”

“Lay off.” Niall waves an elbow in place of his occupied hands.

The octopus is softening in colour, easing back into a warm pink, and then steadily cooler.

“You should really seal his tank,” Liam advises, following him back to the scene of the crime.

“It _is_ sealed,” Niall unbuckles the latch and peels back the rubber lining of the lid.

“How’s he keep getting out?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Niall lowers his hand into the water but the octopus maintains its cling. He waves his hand lightly, before it finally relents and slips smoothly away. It hovers by the surface, one tentacle stretched against the glass.

“Let’s stay put for the rest of the day, yeah, Lou?”

Niall peels the lid back into place, but not before a thin jet of water shoots through the gap and hits Liam square in the ear. Liam squawks and slaps a hand to the side of his face.

“Hey!”

Niall cackles. Liam presses a sleeve-wrapped finger into the ridges of his ear.

“Stay alert, Payno,” Niall grins.

“That’s the third time he’s got me this month!”

“Lacking in manners, I’m afraid.”

Louis floats gracefully to the floor of his tank, now seemingly content, and squeezes himself into the neck of the nearest bottle. One tentacle maintains a teasing wave.

Liam leans down beside him, mouth downturned and finger still resolutely buried in his ear.

“Wily little fellow, isn’t he?”

“You’ve no idea. Earned my respect at any rate.” There’s a hint of pride in Niall’s voice, which he hopes Liam doesn’t detect. Judging by his answering grumble, he does.

“Oughta discipline him for that.”

“Not sure he’d care a lick about my authority,” Niall shrugs. “If he did, I’d be better at keeping him in his tank.”

Louis slithers back out of his bottle as Liam’s face approaches the glass, pressing two arms against the inside of the tank. His suckers are pale against the glass, pulsing gently.

“Oh here, saw this the other day and thought of you.” Niall reaches under the desk, rummages his hand blindly through his backpack, and triumphantly pulls out a set of interlocked, fluorescent plastic rings. He’d seen it on sale in the baby section when he’d been out for a new set of chopping boards.

Liam flinches comedically when Niall unlatches the lid a second time, keeping a healthy distance as he drops the toy into the water. Louis detaches himself from the glass and swims towards it, immediately winding his arms curiously through the links. He and the toy sink to the tank floor together.

“Think that’ll keep you busy a while?” Niall asks, finger skimming the water.

“You talk to him like he’s a person.”

“He’s smarter than half the people I’ve met, might overtake you in the Friday night pub quiz, y’know.”

“Ohh, just for that, I’m taking you down specifically.”

“We’re on the same team.”

“Fine, but this week I’m controlling the pen.”

“Oi,” Niall groans. “The quiz master won’t be able to read a thing!”

Liam flicks a little bit of plastic tubing that bounces off the back of his head.

Niall pulls his hand back out, reseals the tank and turns with a grin. “Anyway, you need something, mate?”

“Wondered whether you’re free for lunch. Gonna head over to the new place on Rosewood for my break.”

“It’ll be a late lunch for me today.”

“Suits me, I gotta stop in at the penguin pool. That’s always an ordeal.”

“Let’s make it three then, yeah?”

“Perfect.”

Liam turns away, wobbling his head like he’s just been to the beach and dunked his head. His hand lands heavily on the door knob but he throws a cautious glance back at Louis’ tank before twisting it open.

“Trouble maker,” Niall scolds, when they’re alone once more, but the corner of his mouth stays curled up. Louis is still significantly interlocked with his new plastic rings, tugging at the two outer rings with two of his arms like he’s trying to pull them apart.

“They’re not like the bottles,” Niall warns, resting his chin in his palm. “Don’t come apart.”

Louis seems to hear this and decides he must absolutely prove Niall wrong, because it’s not even half a minute later that the tip of one arm has found a seam in the yellow ring, and he’s split it wider to slip off the green ring.

Niall taps the back of his fingernail lightly against the glass. “You’re lucky that wasn’t expensive.”

Louis tosses the yellow ring behind him with the same arm, and if he squints, Niall can see a faint scar running down the side. A remnant of the injury that had brought Louis to Niall in the first place. It had been a year ago, on a callout to the local port where Niall had received a message about marine life caught in a crayfish pot. Louis had been a little smaller than he is now, tangled in the mesh of a trap that had done some damage.

Niall and a couple of his colleagues had removed him from the trap and brought him back to the aquarium labs. Niall was glad for it too, as he’d wanted to ensure the octopus’s full recovery in a safe environment. Under his watchful eye, Louis had healed nicely and wasted no time in proving himself full of personality.

Once well enough to join the exhibit, he’d fast become a favourite amongst aquarium visitors. Niall had prepared a well-rehearsed speech on the benefits of keeping him, rather than releasing him to the wild, but it had turned out completely unnecessary. He was far too beloved to lose. Niall had also stretched the budget for creature recreation in his attempts to keep Louis entertained.

To this day he’s likely their most high-maintenance resident, but Niall is always quite happy to shoulder it. He’s privately held a long-standing suspicion that Louis knew he was the one to free him from the trap. He’s always most responsive when Niall runs the Octopus Talk, and keenly approaches the surface when Niall is the one on inspection duty.

He’s also struck every other aquarist with an errant jet of water—but never Niall.

His colleagues have taken to calling him the octopus whisperer, and Liam has even joked that he wants to put in an order for a new staff badge that includes this title. Niall himself isn’t convinced he has a special affinity for cephalopods. He’s pretty sure it’s just Louis.

Niall checks the door over his shoulder to ensure Liam hasn’t left it ajar, and there are no more audible footsteps approaching.

He peels the lid off the tank once again, and he can tell it immediately catches Louis’ attention. Four of his arms lift away from the plastic rings, as if waving in greeting. Niall tucks the sleeve of his coat up around his elbow and dips his hand into the water.

Louis propels himself up, just one tentacle loosely hooked around the rings now, and stretches the rest towards Niall’s hand like an underwater ET. Niall wonders if he should start an aquarium-based calendar full of shots where his creatures recreate iconic movie stills. An idea for another day.

Tentacles twine between his fingers, and then Louis presses his mantle up into the palm of Niall’s hand, which he turns to give the impression that Louis is being cradled. He’s still holding onto the rings.

Niall runs a finger gently down the slope of Louis’ mantle. His skin has mellowed out into a soft lavender, the same colour he had flushed when first free of the crayfish pot, and his arms loosen until the toy finally falls away, back to the floor of the tank. One arm stretches up to run itself back down the length of Niall’s finger in return.

Niall smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed it please share the [post](http://dearmrsawyer.tumblr.com/post/180872908498)!


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